Monday, July 30, 2007

I've always liked the color red...

... I just never planned to own a red car. I knew I wanted low maintenance, reliability, longevity, and at least the features I had in my Jetta. My decision was to buy a used Lexus. The color of the best maintained car with the lowest mileage in my price range was "Pearl Cinnabar." The purchase on Friday took all day, thanks to the seller not having the required originals for transfer of the title, and thanks to my distracted error in locking the key to George's car in his trunk so we had to make a round trip from Bellevue to Kenmore and back in Friday afternoon traffic. The dust has settled, the car is finally in my driveway, and I like red more than ever!



I looked forward all that week to knitting at Naomi's, and took the opportunity to go back to my Forest Canopy shawl. I need to be focused when I work on it, even with a lifeline, or I just make too many errors. I took a break from it while I was on the car mission and knit two scarves from Ellen's Mermaid design - one with Rowan's Damask linen yarn, and the other with a sort of chenille blend. They were good practice for my beginning lace knitting and good opportunities to try two different weights of yarn. Blocking was the other technique I practiced; a wet block for the Damask and a dry block for the chenille. The timing was perfect since I've been reading about blocking in the Interweave newsletter. The photo doesn't show the pattern very well - suffice it to say that I'm ready to try the Mermaid shawl with my Sea Silk. As soon as I finish the Forest Canopy shawl.

Meanwhile, I'm getting ready for a sweater project and having to decide which to tackle first between the Rowan Classic Lynton cardigan with Cotton Jeans yarn, or Ruth's Kauni cardigan. I've been swatching the Cotton Jeans, and it looks like I'll be using US 5 instead of 7 due to my "relaxed" knitting. (I don't want to refer to myself as a "loose knitter" do I?) At Rebecca's class at Village on Thursday, I'm planning to begin swatching the Kauni yarn for my first attempt at Fair Isle since college. Well, the Lynton will be fun, and the Kauni will be challenging!

2 comments:

Jamie said...

Welcome to the red car club - I have a red (well Merlot) car too!

Naomi said...

I love the car and I hope I get to ride in it soon!

The damask mermaid is beautiful! I haven't seen that either since its been blocked!

Oh! There are so many projects and so little time! I can relate: Should I do this or that, or the other thing??